


Let's Not Forget

by Kimra



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: :(, Angst, Bucky is damaged, Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Spoilers, Coda, Conversations that need to happen, Gen, It's a work in progress (not the story their issues), Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), This probably counts as angst..., Tony is damaged, Waking Bucky Up to Fix Him, everyone still has issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-15
Updated: 2016-05-15
Packaged: 2018-06-08 14:35:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6859009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kimra/pseuds/Kimra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony took the call after a few months, but it doesn't mean he's happy to be there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Let's Not Forget

Tony glares across the table at the Winter Soldier. Another man his father loved, but this one had the added honour of ending his fathers life. The thought of those last moments, of recognition and confusion and sickly betrayal, is enough to spike Tony’s adrenaline. He tenses with the need to throw himself across the table and punch out his fury until there’s nothing but blood and pulp.

The Winter Soldier shifts minutely, he’s not looking at Tony, but he’s clearly not unaware of him either.

“I wont let you forget.” Tony grits out through clenched teeth. His got the device trapped under his hands, innocuous and harmless, and oh so valuable to one Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes.

“I don’t want to forget.” Barnes replies.

It’s not enough, but Tony feels a piece of glory. The man who killed his father shouldn’t be allowed to wipe those memories clean.

“Doesn’t change anything. Forgetting.” Barnes spits it out, “Just makes you worse.” Barnes looks at Tony, the first sign of strength he’s allowed himself since Tony stepped into the glass box of a room. There’s no challenge in the expression, but he’s the Winter Soldier through and through, ready to fight if he needs to. Tony’s glad he never knew the man, glad he can hate without reservation.

“I could kill you.” Tony leans in, meets that look with his own glib one. He’s not in his suit, but it’s a heartbeat away because he’s not stupid. But they need this more and he has little incentive to help them.

“You should.” Barnes amends helpfully.

Tony pulls back, twirls the BARF device around with practiced causality, “If you think that, why’d you run?” He adds a smile to the question, “I was willing to do the job.”

The Winter Soldier looks outside their glass box at the audience pretending it’s not a hundred precent focused on their exchange. Any illusion of privacy has been facsimiled, but there would have been just as little privacy in a small cement bunker. No-one was letting this happen without supervision, but Tony hadn’t been willing to just hand the device over without getting another look at the monster they were so keen on protecting. “You want it? I’ll only hand it to Barnes, in person.” He’d insisted when he’d realised why they were asking. Bitter that they’d even thought they could ask.

“I don’t want to die.” Barnes replies, eyes locked on the broad spread of Captain Ostinato’s shoulders. “Me an’ Steve… everything we knows about scrapping by on the skin of our teeth to survive.”

Tony rolled his eyes, bored.

“Besides,” Barnes twists a joke of a smile at Tony, “you think Steve was gonna let you?” He lets out a single silent huff of a laugh, “Safest thing for him was if I wasn't there. Because he would die before he stopped protecting me.” There’s the hint of exasperation Tony understands well. Steve Rogers is a pretentious saint of a man, forgive all sins, never give up, always knows the ‘right’ way.

“And here we are.” Tony grits out over the lump of rage clogging up his lungs. “With him trying to save you again.”

“I was willing to sleep, forever if I had to.” He lets Tony see the honesty but Tony doesn’t care.

“How self sacrificing.” He jeers right back because the facts are that the Winter Soldier isn’t asleep, he isn’t maimed and damaged, all he’s missing is a mechanical arm and Tony lost everything. He lost his parents years ago and he’ll never forgive that, but he lost a friend as well, several, he lost the faith of those around him, and he just kept losing more. And there isn’t any sympathy to spare for this invasive man who came in and caused it.

“You know, I’m going to be in your brain. Tripping around, messing with the wiring.” Tony says feeling vicious, “That worry you?”

Barnes looks at Stars and Stripes back again, there’s other people out there, but there’s only one who matters in this equation. “Yeah,” Barnes concedes, “a man could do some real damage with that kind of power. Probably will to.” His shoulders are twisted down, his eyes don’t go back to Tony, he just waits out his judgement.

Tony slams his hand on the table, and he feels the Winter Soldier tense and sees the sharp head shake to someone outside of the room. He turns his head to see Steve already turning his back on them purposefully. Of course Steve would be the first in there if Tony did lunge across the table to choke the life out of one Bucky Barnes. Steve Rogers was never going to trust Tony around the man again if he was smart. Tony didn’t trust himself with the man.

“Then why are you here.” He hisses, furious.

Barnes keeps his eyes on the Stupid Dorito, “Cause he asked, and you don’t fight Steve and win.” He smiles lopsided, a shit eating smile for Tony. “So you’ve noticed.”

“You killed my mum.” Tony bites back just to wipe the glimpse of personality away.

“Yeah.” He agrees. There’s no apology, no symphony of excuses. Bucky Barnes just looks at the space where his hand used to be and accepts the blame.

Tony feels the smallest piece of pleasure knowing this man knows exactly whose to blame. There’s no grovelling because there’s no forgiveness and they both know it.

Tony lets the silence stretch, comfortable in being right, and watches the man, waits to see what else he’ll get out of this. He turns his set to watch as outside the glass cage Rogers waits silently. Tony wonders how desperate the man was to let them contact him, he doesn’t think the Wakandan scientists went around him, but he’s sure even Captain Liberty wouldn’t have thought the request was a good call. Tony likes to surprise people, so he’d said yes, after sitting on it for a few months.

“Why did you come?” Barnes asks, head on and this time challenging. Tony looks away from Steve to find he’s been stared down by the Winter Soldier. It irks him.

“Because they’re not going to put you down like they should.” He reply’s mildly. “And if someone stupidly refuses to destroy their nuclear weapons, I’d rather the bad guys don’t have the launch codes,” he looks at the stump of an arm, “or the uranium.” And smirks at Barnes, proud he left a lasting impression.

Barnes, unsatisfyingly, doesn’t even flinch at the mention of his lost limb.

He digs a little harder, because he wants to hurt the man. “Besides, there’s a lot of kids out there who still have parents. I figure I should do my bit to keep it that way.” He raises his eyebrows in emphasis, and gets a dead eyed expression back. It’s an imperceptible victory, but he’ll take it.

“I know what I’ve done, Stark. I know the world would be better off without me.” He says without an inch of self depreciation.

“The world yes, but not Captain Perfect apparently.” Tony throws a glare at the man pretending not to listen to them. Pretending he’s not on guard.

And James Buchanan Barnes smiled ruefully, “Why do you think I’m still alive?”

It was sickening the sentimentality of it and Tony decided he’d gotten enough. He had his answers, had stated his stipulations, they weren’t going to get anything else out of it. “Right.” He stood sharply, and the Winter Soldier didn’t flinch ready for him. “Let’s do this.” He picked up the BARF case and stepped out of the room. Stomach clenching tight and determined to get it all over with before he could question himself.

 

Outside the room Captain Get’s-What-He-Wants is waiting, hands in his pockets like he can pretend he’s not a threat. It’s deliberate and Tony isn’t an idiot.

“So, where do I set up?” He waggles the case, he’s only brought the preliminary device for analysis. The bigger machine is… bigger.

“T’Challa’s scientists prepared a lab.” He doesn’t direct Tony in any useful away, so Tony waits it out. He knows what’s coming now he’s agreed. Captain Steve Rogers is a boy scout to the end; “Thank you, Tony-“

“Save it.” He interrupts, because that is something he can not tolerate. “I’m not doing it for him, and I'm not doing it for you.”

“Then why are you?” Steve rumbles back, arms folding now he’s not trying to appear meek.

“Because I like you owing me something.” He jabs, his smile like a bad diplomat, “Now the lab?”

He doesn’t tell them that there’s a tiny part of him, a part he keeps trying to squash, that’s whispering that maybe he’s wrong about the man in there. Maybe he’ll regret it if he turns his back. Maybe when the horrors have had time to settle he’ll look at it and see exactly what they’ve all been trying to tell him. He couldn’t help it, he had no control, it wasn’t his fault. It’s too small to voice, to small to trust, to small to listen to. But it’s there, and he’s got enough guilt keeping him awake at night, he doesn’t want any for the Winter Soldier.

**Author's Note:**

> Thoughts?


End file.
